September 27, 2004—Riding Shanks Mare Into Wild Horse Canyon
Very occasionally, just once in a blue moon, a person (if they’re adventuresome enough) has the opportunity to experience something that borders on fantasy—that borders on so outrageous—that you pinch yourself to make sure it is happening. Such was our day today in hiking a most spectacular slot canyon.
We can say without reservations to all you doubting Thomas’s; if you ever have the opportunity to hike a slot canyon and don’t do it, you will be laid to rest an incomplete person for having missed it.
Superlatives fail me, so I essentially will just guide you through our series of pictures, knowing that they truly don’t do the experience justice. For those of you who want to experience this for yourself, Wild Horse Canyon is found off the same named dirt road in Goblin Valley SP. Actually, it along with Bell Canyon, another slot, make a loop hike of approximately 9 miles with a suggested time of 6 hours. We did the major portion of Wild Horse Canyon until the big rock impasse turned us back. It is best to be prepared with rope if you want to traverse the entire thing since there are quite a few passages which require some serious boulder climbing. We would rate this hike as only moderate however. An added note is that those with severe claustrophobia would probably not enjoy this hike as there are numerous extremely narrow passageways which continue for several minutes at a time. And narrow means just that. Marc had to turn sideways to inch through some of them and you can see from this shot looking up that there’s not a heck of a lot of sky showing.
The hike starts as most canyon hikes do, in the innocuous looking wash. It gradually narrows but is still a width of 15-20 feet. However, it’s not very far into the hike before your first large boulder crossing which does require some limberness on the part of the climber.
As the cliff walls climb and the passageway narrows, the detail in the eroded stone walls becomes more and more intriguing.
Things start to get tighter. Light disappears far up above us.
Suddenly, this is it. Can we possibly squeeze through this? What lies ahead? Only one way to find out….
Unique areas start to appear, such as the curvy labyrinth which allows Claudia to play peek-a-boo. Followed by what looks to be whale’s ribs and then a section of fossilized whale ribs. The canyon continues to toy with us, after mountaineering another huge boulder impasse, we magically enter what we refer to as the fingers and continue to climb.
Eventually stymied by our trail’s end, we turn and the return trip goes much quicker. Going down is a lot easier than climbing up. And truly at trail’s end, back at camp, Claudia ponders her outstanding view and her wonderful fulltiming lifestyle while nursing her sore bunion.
